


first cobwebs, then cables

by Pseudothyrum



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Mental Health Issues, Obsessive thoughts, Obsessive-Compulsive, compulsive behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 08:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pseudothyrum/pseuds/Pseudothyrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the kink meme prompt "Q always had problems with OCD, but some event - maybe the stress at his new job at MI6 - triggers it so it becomes more severe. He thinks he can handle it fine, until one day Bond has to break into his flat because he didn't show up for work, because he couldn't stop counting the tiles in his bathroom."</p>
            </blockquote>





	first cobwebs, then cables

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to the kind anon on the kink meme who spurred me to finally get an account and post this!

Q thinks it was probably worst when he was in his first year at uni, when he literally could not sleep until he had flicked the lights on and off a hundred and fifty times because he was sure, completely sure, that not doing so would lead to an electrical failure that would burn the whole house down. He had missed more than one class because he had been obsessively re-organizing the kitchen, convinced that any deviation from his detailed organizational plans would result in food poisoning and a painful death for him and his flatmates. He would count for hours, lying awake and numbering the ceiling tiles, the carpet fibres, anything to put his endless worries about death out of his head. 

He got some help and he got better, his obsessions became more manageable and his compulsions became small things that almost nobody noticed. He still sorted his food so he chewed the same amount on each side of his mouth, he painstakingly leveled the ice cream every time someone dug in and left divots in the previously flat surface, he kept everything in his flat neat and strictly sorted. But he lived, and he functioned, and in the end he caught the attention of MI6, and they whisked him away to a place that was lovely and sterile and under control. By the time he became Q he was perhaps the most stable he had been since childhood. 

And then 004 had to mess it all up by going off and dying while he was on a mission that Q was personally involved in. Q had heard the whole doomed confrontation, and no amount of counting off the tiles of the floor had stopped the man from being stabbed through the heart by a terrorist. 

Q went home that night, and he didn’t go back to work the next day.

***

It only took a day for MI6 to grow sufficiently worried to send a double-oh to find their wayward Quartermaster. Bond gets no response when he knocks at the door, and he thinks nothing of forcing the lock. 

He half expects to find the flat in ruins, or at least betraying some sign of a struggle. Abduction is almost depressingly common in their line of work, and when someone goes missing it’s about a fifty per cent chance that they’re being held for ransom in some terribly cliché warehouse. The other fifty per cent are usually dead by their own hand.

Contrary to expectations the flat is clean, almost unsettlingly so. He moves silently through the rooms, each one rigidly ordered and strangely sterile. The kitchen is by far the strangest; every cupboard is bare and all food items are arrayed along the counters, sorted by size and then alphabetically within each size group. He sees light filtering out from under one door and approaches slowly, ears just picking out the sound of quiet shuffling and a soft voice murmuring something. 

***

Q hears someone turning the handle of his bathroom door, but he is incapable of responding to the sound. He is counting every tile on the bathroom floor (twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four) for the fifth time. Once he is done everything will be all right, he is sure, he just needs to make sure that the number is the same (twenty-five twenty-six twenty-seven). He hears a voice behind him, he thinks maybe calling his name, but he can’t listen right now (twenty-eight twenty-nine thirty) because he just needs to finish counting (thirty-one thirty-two thirty-three). Somebody is touching his shoulder, but he doesn’t respond. He’s almost done (thirty-four thirty-five thirty-six) and when he’s done maybe he’ll be able to stop thinking for just a minute, (thirty-seven thirty-eight thirty-nine), the hands are pulling him up and away (forty forty-one forty-two) and he’s done, he’s safe for now.  
“Q,” 007 says firmly, “Q, look at me” Brought back to full awareness of his surroundings, he is flooded with embarrassment. He twists away from 007’s grip.  
“What are you doing here, 007?” he asks defensively, arms crossed in front of his chest, shoulders hunched.  
“You’ve been missing for a day,” 007 says cooly and evenly, “M sent me to find you.” He hadn’t even noticed the day passing, he’d been so focused. So focused on food, and then on water. He begins to think about water, about how easy it would be to drown, about how easy it would be (no no no it’s too soon) for this room to fill up (it isn’t fair, he’s counted and sorted and worked so hard) and suffocate them both (start counting make it stop), endless, soundless (one one two three five eight), breathless and helpless.  
“Q,” 007 says again, concern worrying at the edges of his tone, and Q comes back to reality, finds himself half collapsed, leaning on the sink to support his failing legs.  
“Are you alright?” Bond asks softly as Q rights himself, still counting in his head. Q considers.  
“I don’t think so,” he says, fingers tapping out the staccato rhythm on his thigh. He breathes, ragged and loud to his own ears. “I lost 004, Bond, I had to-- to listen...” he trails off, fists clenched.  
“I know,” Bond says, “I’m sorry, Q,” Q nods absently, appreciates the statement for the well-meant if empty placation that it is.  
“Let me take you into headquarters, we’ll set you up with some help,” Q laughs humourlessly,  
“Do you think they’ll let me keep my job?” he asks tonelessly, and it’s not really a question, “Do you think MI6 will want a quartermaster who can’t leave the room without turning the lights on and off a hundred times? My job is all I have, Bond. MI6 will remove me from it at best, at worst I’ll be shipped off to one of those hospitals where they send all the mad agents who know too much.” He begins tapping again, counting off the comforting rhythm. “This can’t ever leave this flat, Bond.” Bond sighs and leans against the wall, scanning Q with his unsettlingly blue eyes.  
“So what should we do then? Because I’m sure it hasn’t escaped you that MI6 will be equally unwilling to continue employing a quartermaster who can’t come into work because he’s alphabetizing the contents of his cupboards.”  
“This has happened before,” he says, “I just need someone here to help stop me thinking, and keep me from doing the rituals,” The question hangs unvoiced in the air. Bond nods.  
“I’ll stay.”

***

They spend the night sitting on the floor of Q’s living room, which Q declares the “least stressful” of all the rooms in his flat. Q presses himself into a corner, and James sits with his back against the wall nearby, close enough to be a comfort, but not so close as to encroach on Q’s space. They talk, sometimes about James, sometimes about Q. James talks about some of his missions, about Vesper, about Skyfall. Q talks about his favourite invention, about the first time he got arrested, about the first time he had a nervous breakdown. In the half light of the living room they spill a great deal of their souls to keep the darkness at bay. Secrets told here do not feel so revealed. They are protected somehow, hidden away and safe, locked away in the heart of a kindred spirit. It is a strange sort of closeness, but it is comforting.

Q falls asleep sometime after six in the morning, and James follows him soon after. James awakens several hours later to Moneypenny’s voice hissing in his ear that he'd better be dead or in the midst of being tortured because he hasn’t reported back on his status or confirmed that he has located Q, and so help me god, 007, if you haven’t found him I will personally shoot you, and this time I can guarantee you won’t get back up. Bond confirms that he’s located Q and promises to bring him in as soon as possible. He looks down at Q, who, at some point in the few hours of sleep they’d managed to steal, had closed the few inches between them and come to rest on his shoulder. Q is awake now, his face turned up towards James’  
“I take it I have to go in, then,” he asks, but it isn’t really a question. James nods.  
“But we don’t have to tell them what happened,” he says, “we can tell them you got food poisoning and, in your weakened state, neglected to contact the relevant authorities.” Q nods, grateful, and the pair rise, stretching out the kinks left by a night spent on the floor. 

***

Q readies himself for work swiftly and efficiently, silently skirting the kitchen and the bathroom while James quietly puts the kitchen to rights. Just as they are prepared to leave, James reaches into a pocket of his coat and draws out a small card with a name, several letters, a number and a job title printed on it.  
“Here,” he says, handing the card to Q, “she’s very discreet, and she reports to no one at MI6” He reaches out and gently flips the card in Q’s hand, to reveal several more numbers written in pencil.  
“In case she isn’t around and you need someone to talk to,” he says simply.  
Q smiles his thanks, and together they step out into the light.


End file.
